


A Gay Mess (What Are the New Leaders of the Rebellion...?)

by HungryLibrary



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Let Them Have Kisses, More Fluff, Rated teen for many many smooches and snuggles, Silly, There's no plot, adora is feeling that 'wow my girlfriend? Flawless' mood, also i think i let glimmer think a swear word at somepoint as a treat, meanwhile glimmer is trying glimmer is dying she's hopeless and gay and thriving, mermista is thirsty, ninety percent of this takes place in the comfort of glimmer's bedroom, short appearances of Mermista and Bow and a few others, slightest of angsts now and then
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HungryLibrary/pseuds/HungryLibrary
Summary: Glimmer worries about trying to go five minutes without being gay and snuggling with Adora. Which she’ll have to do soon, in front of everyone, somehow. Luckily Adora is here to kiss her fears away!No they don’t see the irony to this. They’re busy. With the gay.I’m sure they’ll be fine.
Relationships: Adora/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18





	A Gay Mess (What Are the New Leaders of the Rebellion...?)

The reflection in Glimmer’s mirror is sparking, nervous bursts of light following her every move. She glowers at it as she tries to settle her impressive case of bedhead. 

“This is just another meeting.” Glimmer tells herself firmly. Pulls a little _too_ firmly with her comb. Winces. “It’s- Ow- A completely normal meeting that’s going to go the same way as all the other normal meetings. Yep. Definitely.”

Behind her, Adora’s reflection looks up from her place in Glimmer’s hanging bed- A girl is in Glimmer’s bed THIS GIRL is in her bed! The ex-soldier doesn’t look much like a soldier right now, honestly, not while sitting in a nest of rumpled sheets in her equally rumpled sleeping tank top and shorts. She looks comfortable, relaxed. Beautiful- A thing Glimmer definitely hasn’t noticed at least ten times since waking up. A thing that was not Glimmer’s very first thought of the day. 

Currently Adora’s eyebrows are raised, hands busy pulling her loose hair into its usual high ponytail. “That’s the fourth time you’ve said ‘normal’ in the last five minutes. You think this meeting won’t be normal? I’m pretty sure we’re still stuck trying to get Mermista to sign off on the new shipping agreement.” One eyebrow quirks down. Glimmer will not teleport over just for a kiss, no she will not. “Is that what’s making you antsy? The shipping?”

“No.” Kinda. “And I’m not antsy.” Glimmer tears herself away from the vision that is her girlfriend and attacks her own messy bangs again. “Because everything will be normal.”

“Now that’s the _fifth_ time you’ve said it…”

Adora trails off. Out of the corner of her eye Glimmer get the impression of Adora, one hand holding her ponytail in place, the other searching vainly through Glimmer’s blankets.

“I can’t find my hair tie.” The ex-soldier announces, after checking under various stuffed animals. “Do you still have it?”

“Um.” Glimmer’s arm freezes as she spots the elastic band on her wrist. “Yeah I, I’ve got it.”

The hair tie looks back at her innocently, as if seeing it didn’t immediately make Glimmer’s stomach swoop at the memory of carefully stealing it last night, the goodnight kiss she’d used as a distraction, the way a still breathless Adora had laughed when Glimmer proudly showed off her prize…

The bone breaking way Glimmer had held onto the simple, makeshift bracelet when she’d woken up in the middle of the night, her insides hollow, terrified for a second that this was just one of those nights where Adora had snuck into bed for some company, that them cuddling up had been an accident, that’d she’d dreamed up the goodnight kiss and everything else before it again- She’d gotten used to waking up like that a long time ago. The wave of crushing guilt, the fear, and the loneliness had been more ironic, but no less cutting, for having Adora pressed right there against her. For a moment it’d been familiar, had all felt just like she when she was a sad little ball of misery pretending not to steal looks at her friend when she could be sure Adora wouldn’t catch her at.

The hairtie on her wrist had been real though. Not a dream. Real, just like it is now, just like memory it brought with it. The reality check, playful hairtie-stealing had been one of those small lines she’d made sure not to cross before. But she _had_ done it last night without even thinking. And she’d kissed Adora into distraction to do it, and Adora had laughed when she did.

“Glimmer?” 

Oh moons Glimmer’s reflection is blushing. She’s blushing over a hairtie, oh sweet First Ones she is in trouble.

A flash of magic at least gets Glimmer away from the stupid mirror. “Sorry.” The blankets are still warm as Glimmer lands in them behind Adora, they’re nowhere near as warm as Glimmer’s face as she reaches out to touch the hand holding up Adora’s ponytail. “Here, want me to-?”

“Sure.” Adora lets go.

Glimmer scrambles to catch the pony tail and then watches with a wry smile as Adora’s hair falls loose again. “Okay. That was on purpose. I’m gonna have to start all over again, you know.”

An shameless shrug of broad shoulders, a hint of old scars peeking out from Adora’s tank top, right in the same places where Glimmer has her wing buds.

“We have time. And I like having your hands in my hair.”

Her hands in Adora’s hair… It takes several deep breaths for Glimmer to push the flash of THOSE memories away. “Hmm.” A quick snap of Adora’s hair tie against her wrist helps, and with that Glimmer gets to work gathering the long undercut up again. Luckily doing Adora’s hair does take some real focus to get right. Her little poof thingy of bangs is always surprisingly tricky to pull off and Glimmer’s started keeping count of how many times she can get it perfect on the first try.

Even with most of her attention on Adora’s steadily reforming pony tail, Glimmer still can’t help noticing how Adora leans back on her hands and somehow manages to look even more melty and relaxed than before.

“So what’s so normal?”

Glimmer blinks and rewinds mentally. “Normal? Oh, about the meeting.”

Adora starts to nod but stops quickly at an annoyed noise from Glimmer. Glimmer’s current winning streak is _not_ gonna be ruined by a nod. “The last time I saw you like this was before our first time hosting the new Princess Alliance.” Adora hesitates, then says more softly. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.” The problem, Glimmer notes to herself with exasperation, is kinda the opposite. “And quit moving around.” Her girlfriend has started kneading the bed with her hands, worrying at the blankets. It’s not something that gets in the way of hair styling directly but it DOES show off Adora’s forearms, and that IS making things hard.

Adora at once goes comically still, drawing a laugh from Glimmer. “Adora, Adora no, you can still breathe and stuff!” Snorting Glimmer slips the hair tie in place and starts winding it into Adora’s pony tail. Adora lets out a breath that might have been for show except that Glimmer knows her better than that, the goofball.

Said goofball is suddenly quiet in a way that means she wondering if Glimmer saying nothing is wrong is a sign that something is actually very, _very_ wrong.

The last of Glimmer’s laughter comes out tired. “Look, I’m just being antsy about the meeting, okay? Everything’s fine. The meeting will be fine too. I didn’t mean to get you worked up over something that really is nothing.”

Broad shoulders perk up. “Something _is_ something if it’s bothering you.”

Something is also dumb and embarrassing. With a flourish Glimmer finishes the pony tail and leans back to admire her handy work.

“There, all done! You are now ten percent more horsie and I just broke my record with a seventh successful pony-up in a row. Praise me.”

Instead Adora tugs the end of her ponytail over one shoulder and turns to look at Glimmer. Adora’s brows are furrowed over eyes that Glimmer can never decide the color of, though they might be blue right now, and looking into them she feels her heart give a very loud thump.

“Glimmer...”

Adora’s voice has gotten that low, soft undercurrent to it. The one Glimmer only hears when it’s the two of them alone together and Adora’s whole world has narrowed down to just her. The one that makes it very, very hard for Glimmer not to tackle her in a hug where she sits or pinch herself- Forget the rest of the world or make herself go crashing back into the less perfect version where Adora has other more important things to worry about than if one particular princess isn’t all the way okay. 

Only Adora does care. She cares a lot, watching Glimmer with an intensity only battle maps ever see a fraction of. If Glimmer’s cheeks were warm before they are very much on fire now. “I.” Glimmer hears herself say faintly. “… I am doomed.”

And with that she gives up and falls over, face burying in the blankets, hands digging fretfully into the short tangle of her hair. 

“Wha- Glimmer?” The bed dips, Adora voice comes closer and a hand rests on Glimmer’s shoulder. Somehow even in the midst of despair Glimmer still feels herself literally lighting up at the touch. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m DOOMED. I’m a DISASTER.” Glimmer moans into the bed as Adora’s hand starts to rub uncertain circles, probably trying to calm her, but only succeeding in making sparks burst in the air round them both, like Glimmer is some kind of ridiculous, gay-powered fire cracker. “It’s not the meeting that’s the problem, Adora, it’s ME. I’m a mess! I mean just LOOK AT ME!”

Adora’s other hand joins the first, running over Glimmer’s back in confusedly reassuring motions, careful of the tiny wings between Glimmer’s shoulder blades. “I’m looking? You’re beautiful.”

“Aaaaagh.” Is all Glimmer can say while her heart implodes in her chest.

Adora pauses for a second, her baffled thoughts coming clearly through the twitch of her fingers. “I’m supposed to be looking for something else aren’t I.” Glimmer groans affirmative. “A mess?” Another positive groan. “A mess. Uh.”

One long minute of hard thinking passes. Apparently Glimmer’s girlfriend is having trouble with this assignment. Finally Adora ventures a guess.

“Do you mean, uh, the ‘bedhead’?” Something tickles the back of Glimmer’s neck, stroking gently though the downy fluff hidden there and then sliding up as Adora finds one of Glimmer’s clenched hands and covers it with her own larger one. Glimmer’s hand is sweaty and Adora’s scraps with rough calluses, not details her imagination ever bothered thinking up on its own. Screwing her eyes shut Glimmer takes a deep breath. She could spend all morning here. She could spend all day right here. “It’s cute.” Adora says with a level of affection that should be illegal. “I like you with bedhead, but I can help brush it out for you, if you want. Fair trade for the ponytail.” She jokes, said ponytail tickling Glimmer’s arms as Adora leans down. “Coagulations on the seventh-time-in-a-row record, and thank you.”

Something, something warm and familiar, nudges at the back of Glimmer’s head- Adora’s cheek nuzzling her hands, everything about the move painfully affectionate. 

If Glimmer spends one moment more in this bed with this girl she is _never_ going to leave.

Magic flares, jars and knives rattling as Glimmer teleports from the extremely dangerous bed to the top of her cluttered vanity table. “THAT!” She declares, pointing up at a startled Adora. “THAT’S THE PROMLEM!”

Adora leans over the edge of the hanging bed, confused but apparently used to sudden teleports by now. “Messy hair?”

“NOT THE HAIR, THE-” Glimmer’s voice catches, strangled by what she is going to say next. “This.” She squeezes out finally. “This stuff. All the snuggling and… nuzzling, and… you know. You know? Not in general!” She hurries on as Adora’s eyes turn pale grey and widen, her confusion edging towards something more scared. “Not this just right now! That was amazing and wonderful and it’s great, it’s amazing, did I mention it’s wonderful, I don’t _ever_ want this to stop.”

For a moment Adora just stares at her, doubtful.

“… but?”

That really does make Glimmer’s throat close up tight. She shakes her head hard, adamant, holding Adora’s gaze. “No.” She corrects. “Not ‘but’. _And._ ”

And please let that make sense. Some sense, any sense.

Adora’s forehead wrinkles. “And?” She’s confused again, then- _Thank the moons_ \- a slow smile curls at the corners of her lips. “And, at the meeting.” Adora says with satisfied understanding. “ _Oh._ ”

Oh indeed. As in oh isn’t it nice there’s a chair poof nearby for Glimmer’s weak knees to drop her into.

Glimmer sits down hard and sprawls her upper body backwards across the table. Bottles chime and fall as her outstretched arms knock them over, there’s a clatter as Glimmer’s comb meets the floor, and the edge of the table is digging sharp and painful into Glimmer’s spine. She does not care. She feels like she just tried teleporting all the way to the Land of Snows with half her magic already drained off. “I hate my life.”

“Not true.” There’s a faint swish of sheets and a barely audible thump of something other than a comb hitting the floor. “You hate the Horde and the war and mattresses that actually give some lumbar support.”

Adora has jumped down from the hanging bed. How does Adora just casually jump ten feet like that? Glimmer knows how. Glimmer has gotten a lot more familiar with Adora lately in a lot of ways and if she pretends she is not thinking about that right now, stop it. 

Eyes roving stubbornly over the familiar patterns of the ceiling, Glimmer scowls. “Your bed doesn’t have a mattress. It has a solid plank of _wood_ hidden under its sheets _._ ”

She can hear the shrug in Adora’s answer. “Supportive wood.”

“Still wood.”

Something moves at the corner of Glimmer’s eye, something tall and totally not worth looking at as it cheerfully takes a seat next to Glimmer on the table.

“How long have we been dating?” Adora asks with complete and blatantly fake innocence, and there’s no way she doesn’t see how Glimmer’s heart leap right through the thin cloth of her sleeping top. “I mean dating-dating, not the ‘dating’ from when we did lots of date things together without knowing we both actually wanted to date each other.”

Glimmer sends a desperately pleading look to the ceiling, she has a bad feeling she knows where this is going. “Adora, you know when, you know EXACTLY when. You asked for your very first calendar just so you could mark the date AND the time AND the place. It’s been months. You still haven’t turned the calendar page over yet.”

The uninteresting thing next to Glimmer nods. “And I never will. Suddenly I can’t remember though- Have we sat through a princess meeting since then? A long boring one, I mean, not the emergency talks right before a battle.”

Here it comes. “No.”

“We’ve had a few dinners with you mom.” Adora muses. “But those didn’t drag on for hours and hours. And when we all moved to the couch things afterwards, she thought it was cute how we cuddled up together and how I kept playing with your hands. I mean, you got all red when she said that, but it didn’t stop you from dozing off on my shoulder a little later.” .

Help. “So?”

“Bow also doesn’t care if we get distracted during best friend squad activities. He does make that weird high-pitched sound sometimes, but I think he said it was just _‘A year’s worth of held back feels finally being set loose’_ and not a sign that be he might be in pain or dying.” Adora pauses for effect. “He’s been making that noise a lot lately.”

Help please moons why. “Uh huh.” 

Adora is definitely smiling right now. “I guess that means we’ve been getting distracted with each other a lot lately, haven’t we?”

Heeeeelp. “Maybe.”

Suddenly the ceiling vanishes and all Glimmer can see is Adora- Adora leaning over her, Glimmer’s sparks reflecting in her eyes, the smile so comically smug it makes Glimmer’s own eyes want to roll, the smile so cute that Glimmer finds herself smiling a little too.

Her girlfriend gives her a knowing look. “I think I know what’s bothering you about today’s meeting.”

Glimmer says nothing. Her brain has mysteriously turned off. “Ffft.” She lets out a breathless sound of defeat.

Adora laughs, a bright burst of fondness that Glimmer feels echoed in the hand that oh so gently reaches down to cup her face. Adora, always so fascinated these days with the idea that touching is okay and won’t get her or Glimmer in trouble. Getting THAT fact through her sometimes ridiculously hard skull had been one of the top three most challenging battles of Glimmer’s life so far, and it’s definitely proving to be the one with the clearest rewards at the end. Rewards like the gentle stroke of Adora’s thumb across Glimmer’s cheek and the little crinkles at the corners of Adora’s eyes as she does it.

Adora’s voice is low again when she speaks, only this time without any hint of worry. “You’re wondering if we’ll be able to keep our hands off each other, aren’t you? Or if we’ll be able to focus on anything else but doing that, when we’re sitting right next to each other. During the meeting, I mean.”

Swallowing hard Glimmer mock-glares up at her.

“Rude, baseless accusation. I am a seasoned princess of many official things with impeccable self-control, and I demand a kiss in apology.”

“You can have a kiss.” Her girlfriend answers easily. “But I think that kinda just proves my point-”

Glimmer makes a different point by covering Adora’s hand with her own and teleporting them into a slightly less mind-melting position. Only slightly though, because feeling Adora’s brain turning off instead as Glimmer reappears in front of her, hands on Adora’s forearms for steadiness, leaning in, is still enough to make doing the words thing a challenge.

But this is a time for word-things, right now, with Adora wondering and worrying. Adora worries too much already and Glimmer swears she’s not going to add to that endless list, not when the fix is as simple as just talking about something.

So she does her best. Even if talking about this thing leaves her feeling like she’s going into a fight without her magic charged.

“The kissing. The snuggling and the holding.” The holding she’s doing right now. “It’s… it’s not just for fun. I mean it _is_ fun but sometimes it’s because I’m, because I get scared for no reason.” Glimmer hopes that sounds less pathetic than it does in her head. “I’m not used to, to this, it’s new and- please don’t laugh at this part I know it’s silly-” She heaves a sigh, trying to force the rest out along with the stale air. “Just. I’ve spent more time thinking this, us ‘this’, would never happen. I kept telling myself it wouldn’t. But I still wanted it to and dreamed about it and pictured it, to embarrassing levels of detail you have NO idea- so. So even though it _has_ happened, and we _are_ this, it, it just…”

Sounds very stupid. Glimmer lets her eyes drop to a random glass bottle sitting next to Adora’s leg. The bottle looks awkward. Everything about this is suddenly unbearably, agonizingly awkward. And all because she is working herself up over nothing. 

“… never mind.” She digs up a lopsided smile, the best she can do right now. “Being silly, like I said. Laugh away.” 

“No.”

Adora isn’t laughing. She is sitting quietly, looking at Glimmer. Prompting her. “It just…?” Listening. 

Glimmer looks down at her hands on Adora’s arms, her fingerless and clearly damp looking gloves. “I’m getting gross sweat marks on you.” That seems really important somehow.

To her anyway. Not to Adora. “You do that in training all the time. It’s part of what happens when people get close.”

“Ha.” Adora’s says it so matter of fact, grossness and closeness, one just another part of the other. And not a bad part of it either. “Guess so.” Adora doesn’t look annoyed or disappointed or exasperated. She’s intent, listening.

Listening will only work if Glimmer fills in the other half of it. So say words, for Etheria’s sake. Speak!

It comes out in a stumbling rush, because of course it does. “I-it feels like it could be another dream- too good, too everything. I start thinking like that, and.” Her grip on Adora’s arms tightens, relieved at how solid she is. Real muscle, real bone, real Adora really sitting here with her. “I panic. I get scared.” She a little scared to see Adora’s reaction to her girlfriend being such a complete mess, but finds herself looking up anyway, adding on desperately. “You know?”

Adora breaths deep. Her fingers brushing Glimmer’s forearms in return.

“Like a dream. The kind you could just blink and find yourself waking up from again, back where none of it really happened.”

She knows. Glimmer slumps where she stands, grip going slack. “Yes.”

The soft touch on Glimmer’s forearms turns into a pressure, Adora gripping back just enough to hold on. “So you need something to remind you it’s not a dream.” Her eyes flick between Glimmer’s as she says it, searching, then nervous. “I get scared too. When we’re together, all I want to do is enjoy it. And I do. But there’s this whisper at the back of my head, a gut feeling, like a warning, telling me I need to enjoy this while I can. Even though you got me my own nice bed I still can’t sleep there half the time. I need to feel you breathing next to me, I have to memorize what it’s like, while it lasts. Because I know this won’t-”

Adora cuts herself off, flinching, gaze breaking away from Glimmer. “That’s not-” Muscles jump under Glimmer’s palms. Scared. “I didn’t mean-” Scratch that, she’s _terrified._

Glimmer chaffs her arms gently. “I know.” It’s the shadows talking again, the ones that followed Adora out of the Fright Zone. Glimmer hates them, hates how Adora can be scared with her like this. Stupid, unfair, _wrong_ , the way Adora can shrink into herself so fast and suddenly look so small. “I know, it’s okay.” Like she’s waiting for Glimmer to say something angry. “Keep going?” There was only one time when Glimmer had to chance to physically punch these shadows to the ground. Before then and since, the only way to fight them is with patience. She’s not good at that. She’s getting better at it, slowly. 

Slowly, shakily, Adora pulls in air, every part of her still strung taught. But she does go on.

“Things don’t.. they don’t end happy most of the time. So I think about this stopping someday, suddenly- I don’t want it to.” She adds quickly, daring to glance up as if worried Glimmer won’t believe that without eye contact. “But I also know I’ll- I’ve- that I’m-” Tripping over that part, also getting better but still ending up on. “I might do the wrong thing.”

Glimmer has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep quiet.

“Chances of that go up the longer we’re together. And…”

And that’s as much silent listening as Glimmer can do.

“Adora you won’t. _This_ won’t.”

Those words come out strong, matching the drumbeat pounding under her ribs.

Her grip on Adora’s arms is also strong, maybe too much. She loosens her hands, sooths the spots they’d clamped onto, leans in to bump Adora’s silly hair poof with her bangs instead.

“Hey.” Glimmer bumps again, trying for speck of lightheartedness to lift the heaviness from her lungs. “Hey, I didn’t embarrass myself a hundred million times in front of you just for the fun of it. I kinda had a reason, with all the flowers and really badly worded confessions.” She smiles. “I hoped the dating would be a hint.” The sappiest and most honest smile of her life. “A big hint that irresistibly compelling reason for me doing all that was _you_.”

She gets a small lift of Adora’s lips in answer. “I know.” Feels it as a bit of the tension drains from Adora. Only a bit, though. “Same with me, with the sparring challenges and endless food offerings. Still.” 

“Still.” Glimmer echoes back, laughing a tiny bit from pure relief- Maybe the panicking moments aren’t over quite yet after all. “Moons, we’re pretty ridiculous aren’t we?”

Adora perks up at that. “Bow says being ridiculous together is the best way to be in love.”

He’s right, as usual, and it is. “Bow is a very smart man.”

Glimmer loves that she can lean in that little bit more for a kiss. She loves that Adora is finally smiling when their lips meet.

She also loves the natural way her hands move to Adora’s waist, how having them there means she can feel when Adora’s breathes slowly in, fears and shadows all melting away for the moment. She loves the relaxed little hm-mm sound Adora makes as she reaches up to cradle Glimmer’s face in her hands again, rough pads tickling Glimmer’s cheeks, and kisses back.

She also loves it when Adora’s legs start swinging giddily, always a sign of a happy Adora. Unfortunately the feeling of her calves brushing past Glimmer’s thighs on each pass is tingly beyond ignoring and in the end Glimmer has to pull away, giggling helplessly.

“Adora-” Adora seems to decide this is a perfect chance to smooch Glimmer loudly on the chin. Glimmer laughs. “Adora- tickles!”

Her girlfriend leans up and thoughtfully lands the next smooch on Glimmer’s eyebrow. “Hmm. I don’t feel anything.”

Glimmer is clutching at Adora’s waist purely for support now, trying not to wiggle as Adora’s legs go right on swishing by, the tempo even faster and evil girlfriend glee and twice a tingly. Glimmer bites her lip, trying to frown past a smile that refuses to leave. “Well _I_ feel- Legs, swing-y- HA! You know what I mean!” In answer Adora smooches her cheek. “C’mon, if you keep this up I’m gonna end up banging our heads together or something.” Glimmer warns.

“Mrah.” Adora attempts to put smooch four on Glimmer’s other cheek.

Ah but Glimmer is ready this time, knew it was coming, and tilts her head to catch it. Adora makes a new sound against her mouth, surprised, curious, like Glimmer just showed off a new move during sparring. Her legs stop swinging and instead cross loosely behind Glimmer, focus successfully switched from tormenting to being tormented. Or at least being distracted, anyway. Ha _ha!_ Tickling vanquished via expert use of lips, Glimmer is a genius.

Or maybe not. Because Adora is a very fast learner and when that’s paired with kissing stuff Glimmer’s brain rarely survives for long. This right now is going in that direction, and fast. Not that Glimmer minds. If Adora wants to pick now to figure out a new way to ruined Glimmer’s ability to think coherently, that’s more than fine. In fact it’s brilliant, even more genius that Glimmer herself.

Adora does decide to do just that, and somewhere in the back of Glimmer’s head a stray thought bubbles up- Do other people turn kissing into silly games like this? Glimmer feels really bad for them if they don’t. Do they go from breathless to playful to slow and then back again because the only thing they’re really sure of is that they want to be close, and want to know person currently kissing them senseless knows it? Do other people experience the calm Glimmer does when their kiss winds down to a slow halt, both still pressed close, lingering, foreheads resting together, close enough she can feel the prick of Adora’s eyelashes and know without peeking she still has her eyes closed too. Do other people feel as safe as she does when Adora’s slips her arms over Glimmer’s shoulders and just holds her there? She hopes so. Moments like these turn life into an eternity all its own, ones that’s just for them and is so unbelievably easy to find herself lost in. 

At some point Adora’s eyes flicker open again, blue grey and dark around the reflections of Glimmer’s sparks. Glimmer doesn’t remember opening her own eyes, but she’s already finished counting the scattering of scars scratched across Adora’s face, so it must have been a while.

Adora blinks, gaze unfocused and the hint of a contented smile still on her lips. Then she squints her adorable squint- she has terrible eyesight close up but doesn’t seem to want to pull back yet. Dork. The squinting will give her a headache if she keeps it up much longer, and internally Glimmer starts a countdown of one minute. After that she’s either going to have to pull back herself or kiss her girlfriend’s eyes shut again- In the name of saving her from future eyesight-induced suffering, of course.

The squinting suddenly sharpens. This time when Adora frowns Glimmer feels the way her face tightens into faint lines

“Glimmer, are you okay?”

Glimmer has never been better. “I’m great.” She whispers back. “Why?”

One of Adora’s arms slides off her shoulders. A cautious finger brushes under one of Glimmer’s eyes.

“You’re crying.”

There’s something hot and wet stinging her eyes, Glimmer realizes suddenly. Adora is blurry at the edges and her hand wipes more dampness from Glimmer’s face. A laugh jolts from her - And okay yeah it comes out kinda choked and wet sounding, but it’s a not a sad sound she swears. “Just feeling sappy I guess.” She hopes Adora hears how happy she is. “Sorry.”

Shutting her eyes Glimmer lifts a hand, impatient to scrub the stupid tears away. Her hand gets stopped halfway there.

“Can I?” Adora is whispering now too.

Glimmer nods and lets her hand fall to Adora’s side again. She’s not sure what’s she expecting, but the soft tickle on her cheeks takes her by surprise. “Are you, are you using your _hair?_ ” Glimmer hiccups, incredulous. 

The tickling pauses for a second before going back to carefully dabbing at her eyes. “I don’t have any sleeves right now.” Adora says as if the question is silly and the explanation clear. “Hair is more absorbent than skin, and you’re eyes will get red and puffy if we rub them.”

What kind of girl is Glimmer dating, even? Well the best one obviously, but. “Is this really a hair-sacrificing emergency?”

“There’s the meeting.” Reminds Adora. “A girlfriend should make sure her girlfriend looks good for official stuff. Honestly I think you always look good, but you called a makeup intervention with Bow and your mom that one time the flowers. The ones you gave me, remember?” Oh boy does Glimmer remember. Being magically immune to colds didn’t give her immunity to magical pollen, rudely enough. “They made your eyes all puffy right before a princess thing, and that made you yell for a while, so you probably don’t want to go into this one with red eyes either, right? Therefore, preventative measures.”

A smile trembles across Glimmer’s lips. “Dork.”

“Mm.”

Adora falls quiet, intent on her very important girlfriend duties. Glimmer scrunches up her nose and tries hard to resist the growing urge to sneeze. Her memories of those horrible flowers are still pretty intense.

Maybe seeing that, Adora pipes up again, and it’s instantly clear she’s been doing too much thinking on the topic of how to properly dry someone’s eyes. “I could take off my tank top and use that instead, if you-”

“ _Ohsweetmoonsandstone_ NO.”

Frantically Glimmer sinks her hands into Adora’s top, anchoring it firmly in place, eyes snapping open and face burning hot enough that whatever’s left of her tears should be evaporated to nothing but steam in another second. “Adora I swear- I SWEAR on Bright Moon’s runestone- If you try flexing your abs at me on the same day I’m supposed to spend four to ten hours sitting next to YOU in the same room as my MOM, I-”

She should not have said that. Now she’s thinking about it, and the while her brain is screaming at the horrifying scenario, the rest of her is kinda distracted by the first part. Seeing Adora’s pleased smirk isn’t helping.

Dropping her now damp ponytail, Adora winds her arms around Glimmer’s neck again. “The meeting’s not until ten.”

Glimmer has self-control. She’s just not sure she wants it anymore. “Ten’s early.”

“Ten’s late.” Adora counters, closing the gap and brushing the lightest kiss possible to the corner of Glimmer’s jaw. “Half the day’s already over by ten. But even though we slept in, we should still have a little time.”

The words raise goosebumps as they rush over Glimmer’s skin. Her hands aren’t holding onto Adora’s top anymore, they’ve slipped under it at some point, are now pressed very happy against warm bare skin. Glimmer has to make a conscious effort to keep them from going anywhere else. “Waking up at eight in the morning is NOT sleeping in, Adora.”

Her temptress of a girlfriend dips low to nuzzle Glimmer’s neck, lips brushing the hollow of Glimmer’s throat when she speaks. “Okay, we can pretend it’s early if you want to.” Adora blinks up at her, puppy-dog eyes activated. “Does that mean we have time?”

Glimmer harnesses all the blood rushing to her head and tries to think about the question.

“We need… to get dressed and have breakfast.” Adora decides this is the moment to start working on the world’s gentlest hickey, right there at the juncture of Glimmer’s throat. Glimmer sucks in a sharp breath. “O-or we could have something during the meeting maybe. Our reports and notes are in your room. So’s my speech, for the presentation… We’d have to fetch them. Then we have to actually be at the council room on time…”

A low hum vibrates against Glimmer’s skin. “Lucky my girlfriend can do the teleport-y thing.” 

It’s only when Glimmer blinks at the sound that she notices her eyes are still open, utterly blinded by the images rushing through her head. “I can- Right, yes. Yeah.” She totally hadn’t almost forgotten about that. “I can do the teleport-y thing. That would, that would save time.”

She’s also been staring at the mirror over Adora’s shoulder this whole time, completely without seeing anything. Now she does see, and what she sees makes her flush even deeper red. Her reflection is a mess- Terrific bedhead, blushing so bad her face almost matches her bright pink hair and eyes, letting off random sparks as one of Adora’s hands finds the back of her neck and tangle lazily in the short fluff there. She watches herself breathing carefully deep, hands having slid up enough to drag the hem of Adora’s top up with them a few inches. She’s grinning stupidly. She looks ridiculous.

She’s about to look away when Adora shifts, tilting to glance up at Glimmer, a silver of her face visible in the mirror. And Adora’s expression right then is…

The sparks flare before Glimmer can think twice. There’s a soft thwump as Adora drops half foot and onto the bed and Glimmer crashes on top of her a second later, landing with face mashed into Adora’s shoulder, hands still at Adora’s waist and now pinned to the mattress by their combined weight.

It is not the position she’d have thought of, if she’d been able to use her brain for thinking.

“Teleport-y… _Thingy_.” Glimmer grumbles, resigned. “Ugh.”

Lying on top of Adora means Glimmer literally bounces along in time with her girlfriend’s amused chuckle. “At least this time you didn’t accidentally teleport us mid-kiss up a tree. Or into a rack of weapons, or into an ice-cold waterfall, or right in front of Bow so he screams and goes leaping out the nearest window and runs off to the woods for almost a week-” 

Lying on top of Adora also makes it very easy to scoot up and muffle her next words. “Adora.” She growls in the tiny moments when her mouth isn’t busy. “Please shut up.”

“Okay.” The second they break for air Adora is talking again. “So. Make outs?” She wiggles her eyebrows up at Glimmer, trying to be smooth, trying to fluster.

Glimmer rolls her eyes, butterflies dancing in her stomach. Is it possible to love someone so much you just want to scream at how shameless in love with you they are? ‘Cause somehow Glimmer knows the feeling.

“As long as we’re out of our pajamas- by which I mean we’re DRESSED, so stop you can stop looking all red and terrified- by ten minutes to ten, then yes, make outs.”

Adora beams. “I like kissing you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” Glimmer tries wiggling her hands. Key word being ‘tries’. “Speaking of feelings, soon my hands aren’t gonna have any left...”

“That would be sad, I like your hands too.” Sitting up Adora helps tug Glimmer’s hands free from beneath them.

She doesn’t let go afterwards but turns them over in her own, pressing calloused finger pads into Glimmer’s palms like she’s trying to smooth out the faint red crease lines there, head dipped intently in study.

Glimmer raises an eyebrow, happy to sit right here all day if that’s what Adora’s into. Which doesn’t mean she isn’t curious. “Okay spill, what’s so fascinating about my hands theses days? When they’re not making you go ‘oh wow’ and stuff I mean.” 

Adora’s attention doesn’t so much as faulter. Says, perfectly seriously. “Your hands are very you.”

Glimmer watches her, feeling stupid and in love. “Really huh. I hadn’t noticed.”

Adora, beautiful head-empty heart-full Adora, slips into her report giving voice as they sit there in bed, bathed in morning moonlight, a moment better than any dream. 

“You hit so hard with them.” Adora explains. “When there’s something you want to protect- and you hold on so tight when someone starts slipping away. But your hands are soft.” She squishes gently for emphasis. “Happy. Reaching out just to show people you care, cradling little bits of light without crushing them. The is strength waiting there, just underneath, for when you need it. Or for when someone else needs you.” Her voice goes distant, words half mumbled like she’s thinking out loud. Like she’s forgotten that Glimmer can hear her, just like Glimmer forgets how to breathe as she hears the next part. “Being held by you doesn’t leave marks behind.” Adora’s murmur is quiet, contemplative. “…It just feels safe.”

Maybe it’s her touch, maybe it’s all the attention- maybe it’s words Adora offers up with no idea what they mean to her- either way, it feels like there should be sparks of magic jumping from every place their skin brushes. “Good.” Glimmer flexes out the tingles, catching and releasing Adora curious fingers. “I hope so.” Drop her off of a tower right now and she wouldn’t need wings to fly, she’s sure of it. “I can’t say you don’t leave marks on _me_ , Adora, but they’re all ones I want to keep.”

Adora blinks back to herself. “Oh.” Glimmer expects her to blush or look away. Instead she frowns seriously. “I meant the ‘no marks’ thing as a metaphor, by the way. I really like it when you do leave marks. Like, on skin.” Her eyes are very intense as they move from Glimmer’s hands to Glimmer’s mouth. “For make out purposes, for example.”

Glimmer snorts. The sound doesn’t stop, goes right on bubbling up as Adora’s puppy eyes return. “Oh yeah?” Grinning, Glimmer shifts their hands and tucks her fingers under Adora’s, more letting Adora’s hands rest in hers than even holding onto them. A light point of connection, all she needs to draw Adora in. “Is that a hint?”

“Yes.” Adora leans in a bit closer all on her own. “Affirmative, definitely.”

The soft hickey on Glimmer’s neck is drawing attention now. Glimmer lifts one of Adora’s hands so the back of her knucks just brush the sensitive mark. “Payback time?” She says it like she doesn’t know the answer already. “Or we could be responsible young adults and get ready for the meet-”

Sure enough. _“Glimmer.”_ A one-word pout, and the static prickle of one fingertip tracing it’s slow way down Glimmer’s jaw.

Glimmer’s not sure how that moment blurs into the taste of Adora’s lips or the tickle of her soundless sigh rushing over Glimmer’s cheek, she’s not sure when she ended up on her side lost in the pillows and sheets and how Adora fits so snuggling in with them, hard lines melting at the edges. She’s not sure how she got lucky enough to have one hand cradling Adora into their kiss as the other presses flat under her shirt hem, measuring each contented breath. She’s _pretty_ sure Adora has always had her arms around her likes this. She’s _fairly_ certain the glow peeking through her closed eyelids is thanks to how her magic is thrumming along in time with her racing heart, and could guess that she’s probably filling the air between them with sparks.

What she knows is she doesn’t care about that right now. She knows because they need air and suddenly Adora needs to lean up for another ridiculous smooch, half on Glimmer’s forehead and half on her eyebrow, and Glimmer is laughing as she takes this hint too, the tilt of Adora’s head, the way it lets _her_ next kiss find the delicate skin under Adora’s ear, and then at the crook of her jaw, and then-

And then someone is _opening the door._

Glimmer’s head snaps up so fast she swears she hears her neck crack. “Okay gays!” Says the voice of a dead man as he walks in. “Hands up and clothes on, this is now a safe-for-Bow zone!”

Glimmer is going to **_kill_** him. _“BOW!”_

Under her, Glimmer feels Adora slump. Her girlfriend lets out what has to be the longest, most frustrated and long-suffering sigh the world has ever heard. “We didn’t have safe zones back in the Fright Zone.” She grumbles, tugging the hem of her shirt back down and then resignedly lifting both hands high in the air above them.

The shock of not being touched by Adora is so strong Glimmer wonders if she’s somehow having another glitch.

Instead her magic starbursts around the room, and if there was any heat to her sparks all of Bright Moon would be aflame. **“OUT.”** She roars as she sits up, blood and fury pounding in her head, pointing to the door even though Bow has his hand over his eyes and can’t see the furious way she’s trying to banish him. “This is my room! MY! ROOM! The only things safe in here are my girlfriend and our right to kiss each other until _every single one_ of the moons fall out of the sky! OR TO KEEP RIGHT ON KISSING EACH OTHER _WHILE_ THEY’RE FALLING!”

“Uh huh.” Even with half his face covered Bow looks unimpressed. “Is that what you want me to tell everyone when they ask why She-Ra and the leader of the new Alliance are late for today’s meeting?”

Glimmer nearly howls. “YE-” Until she hears him. “Late? We’re late?” Ice replaces blood, rage fizzling out along with her sparks. “Late how, how late?” She feels Adora tense up slowly, inch by inch, until she’s as hard and uncomfortable as a stone statue.

A sigh from the dead man. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Eight… thirty?” Adora offers, unsure, clearly very worried about being unsure.

In horror Glimmer watches Bow shake his head, in despair as she hears him clearly say.

“It’s ten minutes past ten. Your mom sent me to check on you guys and to, uh…” He hesitates. His dark skin doesn’t show a blush, but his obvious awkwardness sure implies it. “Um... to ‘Detach’… you two… from each other. If I could.” He coughs and clears his throat uncomfortably. “Her words, not mine!”

For a moment Glimmer is blissfully unable to process this.

Then she screams.

A flash of magic gets her to the vanity, tearing it to pieces, searching desperately. There’s a yelp behind her as something large thuds to the ground. Glimmer is too busy emptying drawers and tossing bottles over her shoulder to check on the sound. “My hair! My comb!” It should be here and it isn’t. She finds a random dagger and picks it up- She can’t have a bad bedhead if she _has no hair-_

A hand lifts up from the floor. It has her comb. “I’ll brush, you get dressed.” Adora says in her battle-ready voice, taking the dagger as she stands and tossing it blindly at wall target. It hits dead center. The brush finds her hair with the same determined accuracy, combing down one side with quick and calculated strokes. “You have more stuff to put on than me, and I can just go She-Ra if I have to.” 

“I love you.” Glimmer affirms with every iota of her being as she snatches up a random article of clothing and jams it onto the first available body part, the feel of the comb almost enough to get her crying again. “I love you I love you I love-”

“Glimmer, you’re trying to put your foot into your shirt.”

Glimmer stops trying to put her foot into her shirt and tugs the shirt over her head instead. “-I know that, and I love you.”

There’s a high pitched squealing sound from the door. Glimmer tosses the next piece of clothing she finds towards the sound, which stops with a soft thump and a yelp. “Bow, if you can find _anything_ in my closet that goes with what I’ve already put on and have it laid out in the next five seconds, I’ll reconsider my plans for best-friend-icide!”

“On it!” Bow chirps, feeling his way over to the wardrobe and sticking his head safely inside it. “Hey Adora, what _is_ she wearing right now anyway?”

The brushing pauses. “Uh.” Adora says, as Glimmer yanks on something she hopes is boot. “Maybe just… find a whole outfit for her, if you can. Or a very big cape.”

Groaning Glimmer yanks back off the thing that apparently isn’t a boot, staring around frantically. “My notes! Our notes? MY SPEECH! Oh First Ones, did we forget to write them- Mom spent half the night helping me with the words but maybe I accidently fed them to Swift Wind- This is a nightmare. Someone please _kill me_ so I can wake up and not be late and note-less and speechless for a meeting that I’M supposed to be hosting!”

The brushing stops completely. Strong arms wrap around Glimmer from behind, catching her mid panicked lunge and pulling her back against Adora’s chest.

“I’m sorry I can’t do that.” The earnestness in Adora’s voice, criminally sweet. “But we’ll both be late to the meeting together. And.” She adds, very seriously. “Since you _are_ hosting, it can’t really start without you, so technically you won’t be late. Legally no one can complain.”

_“Legally?”_

Adora reconsiders. “Well- if anyone does complain, then I’ll just explain the whole ‘you can’t actually be late since you’re hosting’ thing to them.”

Glimmer lets out a noise like a small animal getting squished.

In answer there’s a press of a kiss to the back of her head. “Also, our notes and your presentation are still in my room. Very secure.”

Glimmer manages to exhale and not scream. This time. “Right. Okay, right.” She forces herself to breath in and not asphyxiate herself into the sweet embrace of death. Adora’s embrace is still better. “Just for the record, your hypothetical explanation would involve visual diagrams?”

“Yes.”

“But not of us with heats floating over our head, or quotes from the dictionary’s definition of ‘young love’, right?”

A guilty silence. “Noo.” Adora lies. “Pssh- Of, of course not. That’d be-”

“Cute!” Bow chimes in from the wardrobe. “You’re both very, very cute and I promise no one will be annoyed about you guys being a little late for once. _Especially_ not Perfuma.”

Well that’s not at all suspicious. “Why Perfuma especially?” Glimmer askes as Adora puts the finishing touches on de-fluffing her bangs, somehow wrangling it with her arms still around Glimmer herself. Meanwhile Bow doesn’t answer right away, which is its own answer. “Oh for- You guys have been placing bets on us again haven’t you? _Bow._ ” Glimmer lunges. Only Adora’s loving embrace keeps Glimmer in place and their mutual friend alive. “You said that would stop as soon as me and Adora kissed!”

Turning with arms full of purples, blues, pinks and soft white clothes, Bow tosses the selection blindly in their direction. “I said MY betting would stop then, since I no longer need something to distract myself from having to pretend you both aren’t confiding in me about how hopeless your love for each other is. Which I still have nightmares of, by the way, thank you very much. Now everyone else? _They’re_ just happy to have something not-Horde related to argue about.”

With a wave he feels his way back to the door. “I’ll be outside. If you take longer than five more minutes, then it’s gonna be Mermista who’ll be really happy today!”

Spluttering, Glimmer steals the hairbrush from Adora’s slack hand and chucks at the door just as it swings shut. It hits and bounces of loudly in the sudden quiet of Bow’s escape. For a moment things could almost be peaceful again.

But the peace is a lie and something about what Bow said is giving Glimmer a mental itch.

“Right.” Reluctantly Adora pulls away. “I guess we’d better…”

“Wait.” Lifting a hand Glimmer tries to scratch the unformed thought from her head. Adora sighs, doing her best to smooth Glimmer’s bangs back down again. Glimmer doesn’t have space to worry about hair now though. “At the meeting. We were going to ask Mermista about relaxing rules on shipping to Bright Moon today, weren’t we?”

She feels it when Adora nods absentmindedly. “You think she’s drawing the talks out so she has an excuse to come visit more often. But we can’t say that to her, because you also think she’d probably leave the Princess Alliance before admitting she likes spending time with people. Friends in particular. Us especially, for some reason.”

That makes Glimmer giggle. Adora needing glasses for real has never been more funny. “Okay, ‘for some reason’, that’s right. And you know what else? I have an _idea._ ”

She’s so used to having Bow as a friend it’s a little dizzying when Adora doesn’t look either overjoyed or scared pants-less at the news. Her girlfriend just looks at her, like Glimmer having ideas is normal and a generally positive, un-alarming thing. 

“That’s good. My only plan was to survive the meeting and then crawl under my bed afterwards. What’s yours?” 

It’s like a shot of confidence into Glimmer’s veins, how Adora honestly seems to think Glimmer is capable of coming up with a GOOD plan this early in the morning. How sweet. How adorable. How completely and utterly mistaken- not that Glimmer has time to warn her girlfriend about that.

Marching smartly over to the lump of Bow-approved clothes, Glimmer gestures grandly. “Since I can’t do the politics like my mom can, the real way, having already messed this meeting up so hard the crater can probably be seen from _space_ , I guess I’ll just have to do this my way instead!” Reaching the pile Glimmer swaps her fuzzy aunt-made top for something a bit more formal. “No more rushing. I’m sick of putting my boots on only to have to take them off again three seconds later just because they were actually a shirt.”

Adora follows her, picking up and shaking the creases out of a favorite sparkly cape. She frowns thoughtfully. “You want to wait another five minutes.” Says slowly, weighing the words as she lets them out. “So Mermista will win her bet on us, to make her happy… so she’ll be more likely to say ‘yes’ to the shipping agreement today?”

“Precisely.” Adora might be head-empty but she was also plenty clever. “It’s a daring interpersonal move.” Another few articles of swapped clothing later, Glimmer might be shaking. “It’s dumb. Idiotic. My mom is going to kill me even if I don’t ruin the speech. I’m going to get fired from the Princess Alliance and banished from Bright Moon and grounded in the place I’ve been banished to.”

A soft nudge to her shoulder stops her from continuing the prediction. Glimmer turns around automatically, ready to hopefully ask if Adora will come with her into the impending banishment, and stops cold.

Adora is gazing at her. This is one of those Looks that has Glimmer’s face burning in record time.

“Hi.” Glimmer’s mouth spits out dumbly. “What?”

Cloth swishes as Adora drapes something over Glimmer’s shoulders.

“A leader needs her fancy cape.” The hands on Glimmer’s cape linger, Adora smoothing it carefully over Glimmer’s shoulders. Adora is looking right at Glimmer. She looks proud. “And a rebellion needs good leaders just like you.”

Adora’s a terrible liar. She’s not lying now.

She believes it.

Mouth dry, Glimmer swallows hard.

“I mean.” Tries for a smile, for a way out for the tidal wave in her chest that won’t involve more tears. She really doesn’t want to go into a meeting with puffy red eyes. “I’m talking about using our new relationship to manipulate a friend into signing a political deal so the price of imported sea salt can come down and people will stop dropping hints that they’d like to actually be able to preserve their own crops and catches instead of relying on royal hand-outs which are kinda draining the budget anyway which I need for the war so we can kick the Horde’s butt…. But sure, you can call that being a good leader, I guess.”

If anything that just makes Adora look at her even more That Way. “I don’t have to call it anything. It just already is.”

She leans down. Glimmer shuts her eyes- smiles for real at the solid bump to her forehead that follows. Adora keeps them pressed together for a moment, nudging her playfully, hands kneading slowly until Glimmer’s shoulder slump and the hard knots between her wings melt away.

Eventually Adora gives a final questioning squeeze. “Ready?”

Glimmer pulls back just long enough to return the headbutt, impact settling comfortably into her bones. “I’m ready. _You_ are still in your underwear.”

They separate so Adora can survey herself. “She-Ra?” She suggests hopefully, already eying the sword where it sits propped against a wall next to Glimmer’s own staff.

But the last thing Glimmer wants right now is to see some super powered princess standing in Adora’s place. She shakes her head, grabs a nearby bundle of pink-lined purple that lived permanently slung across one of her poof chairs, and takes Adora’s hand.

“How about, skip the jacket and belts.” Sparks flare and clear to show the paper-strewn, obstacle-course decorated mess that is Adora’s room when she bothers using it. “Grab a shirt, pants.” Glimmer lets go so Adora can pick up her _only_ shirt and only pair of pants. That really does have to change eventually. “Then slip this on.”

Adora, already dressed thanks to what she calls ‘cadet speediness’, tilts her head at the purple bundle Glimmer holds out to her. She takes it, puzzled. “Isn’t this yours?”

“You wore it once already.” Glimmer is absolutely not deflecting the actual question. “Your first day here, remember? You even snuck out to find and fix it from the whole got-torn-off-you-by-a-crazed-winged-unicorn thing for me. And I know you’ve been eyeing it since then.” Hence why she’d made sure it didn’t get hidden away in the wardrobe again. “You like it, right?”

“It’s a nice robe-coat thingy.” Adora agrees. “Comfortable. Sleeveless, leaves the arms free to move, but also long and flappy, which looks cool in a fight. It reminds me of you.” Then, cutting right though Glimmer’s not-deflection while she’s busy blushing over the compliment. “You want to see me in your clothes. In public.”

“I just-” Glimmer starts to protest, only to lose track of the protest as Adora slips the robe over her head. “… yeah. I do.” She bits her lip, heart thudding. “Too weird? Too soon?”

Adora shakes her head. “Not weird, right on time. Wish I had something for you, to match...” She looks around as if hoping extra clothing will spontaneously appear out of thin air. Her eyes find her jacket and brighten. “Aha.”

Glimmer backs up a step. “Adora, I have pink hair. I am NOT wearing red.”

Her girlfriend has already picked up the Horde jacket and is tugging at its belt. “You have pink and purple hair, with sparkles, and would look good in red.” Glimmer shudders. “But that’s not what I’m thinking. Here, come over and turn around?”

Very cautiously, but also knowing she doesn’t actually have the willpower to refuse an Adora who looks so pleased with herself, Glimmer does as asked. “No red.”

“No red.” Adora’s hands reach over her shoulders. Something thin and worn soft and smooth brushes Glimmer’s collar and comes to rest there, Adora’s fingers adjusting it at the back of her neck. “What about this?”

Lifting a hand Glimmer touches the cool metal lying on her skin. It’s in the shape of a wing. She follows the simple feather pattern, remembers it from countless times seeing it before. Wings are her thing, but the metal is gold colored, she knows, the color of Adora’s hair and attached to simple brown leather, as practical and battle ready as everything Adora chooses to wear.

When she doesn’t answer right away, Adora goes on. “This might help us in the meeting too, I think. No one will notice if I fuss with the collar of my robe or if you do the same thing with a necklace.”

“A reminder.” Glimmer manages to say, holding the metal of the wing until it warms. “And no one else has to know.”

“Exactly.” Adora pride in her solutions dims almost at once. “Unless…”

Turning in Adora’s arms Glimmer leans up on tip-toe. One quick kiss to Adora’s cheek, just enough to make her turn pink, and then Glimmer is back on her heels and grinning. “No unless. This is perfect. I’m dating a tactical genius-” She is, she really really is. “But now we’d _really_ better get going, or Bow will come looking for us again.”

Adora grimaces cutely under her equally cute blush. “Blegh. Safe-zones.”

“Exactly.” Glimmer echoes, laughing as she twirls her girlfriend- her girlfriend who really is Adora- into a shower of sparks and brings them both outside.

“Come on, Bow!” She calls down the corridor to where Bow is waiting patiently, leaning against a completely different closed door. He does a double take as they appear far up ahead. “You’re gonna be late!”

This time the sound Bow makes is an angry squawk- “I’M going to be late!?” -and both it and Adora’s answering laugh are music to Glimmer’s ears.

Threats aside, they wait for Bow to catch up, Glimmer grabbing him in a hug as she tucks her arm into Adora’s, magic shimmering in the air around them. “This isn’t going to be ‘just another’ meeting.” She decides. “It’s going to be _great_ one.” 

“Also very normal.” Adora adds seriously. Adora, looking not at all like a soldier in the pastel purple and soft lines of Glimmer’s robe.

Glimmer swears she can feel her new wing necklace flutter. Or maybe that was just her heart. “A new normal from now on.”

* * *

The new normal is resisting the urge to kill.

“If you’ll just.” Glimmer shoves her precious document across the table, ignoring the titters from all sides. “Put your signature…”

“Sure.” Mermista is smirking. “So.” Grinning like an annoying shark, ignoring the document in front of her. “You ever go swimming? Like, in the morning?”

Glimmer bares her teeth. She will keep smiling. She will not blush. Salt, she reminds herself, Bright Moon craves that mineral. “No. Why. Do. You. Ask.”

Mermista picks up her pen, spins it lazily. “There any, uh… sucker fish in Bright Moon’s lake?”

She points languidly at Glimmer. At Glimmer, at her neck, at Adora’s necklace? Ha! Glimmer doesn’t care if she _does_ point at that, doesn’t care if she herself IS a sappy sucker fish for wearing it, she’d love it if the whole world saw-

“’cause it kinda looks like you met one.”

Glimmer kicks herself out of a way too soon marital daydream. “Met one?” She doesn’t get it. “What do you m…” Oh, moons. She gets it.

Not the necklace.

The _hickey._

And suddenly she understands why her mother hasn’t been able to look at her long enough to tut over late sleeping habits.

“Suck-er Fish? I don’t think so?”

Adora, bless her oblivious heart, shuffles quickly through some papers.

“But the lake might have…Er.” She squints at tiny print until Bow passes Glimmer her glasses, which Glimmer numbly slides onto Adora’s nose. “.. oh thanks… flowers, hearts… Ah, here it says _‘SH-R & M forever, 100 clams on the cute cuddle fish not prying themselves off each other until after ten-fifteen, another 100 clams if one of them has-’_ Wait.”

Stopping dead she looks up, peering around over the tops of her wire rims. There’s a soft clatter as a pen falls to the floor.

“Who’s report is this?”

Mermista has managed an impressive change of color- mostly to a reddish hue, and mostly localized in her face. “Uhh.” She articulates gracefully, now empty hand still frozen in pen-holding position as she stares blankly back at Adora.

“Yours?” Adora holds the papers out.

Mermista throws herself half way across the table to reach them. “Yeah.”

Glimmer gets there first, maybe thanks to some quick teleportation. “Let me just double check that for you, Mermista.” She smiles, watching all the red draining from Mermista’s face. “As rebellion leader, it’s my job to make sure no one gets into a tiff over someone reading their stuff when they weren’t cleared to.” Or it is her job now anyway.

The sea princess glowers but droops back into her chair. “They’re mine okay? I’d like them back now, Twinkle.”

“Oh really?” Glimmer makes a show of studying the papers with a straight face. “Tell me then, is there some secret code behind ‘SH-R & M forever’?” 

Mermista sinks further into her chair. If she were in her natural habitat she’d probably be blowing murderous bubbles.

Adora is busy sorting through more papers and doesn’t seem to be hearing any of this. “Sorry, don’t know how yours ended up over here. Ours should be around, somewhere, with spec on the lake…”

The whole sucker fish jab seems to be something Mermista is regretting now. “It’s whatever anyway.”

“No, no.” Adora flips more frantically through her stack. “I’ll find it for you, just give me a second… Or six hundred... or…” Muttering to herself she continues pawing through the papers, every inch a golden retriever digging for something she knew she could totally locate and would spend all night searching for, now she knew someone actually wanted it. Glimmer kinda wishes she had a camera. 

But right now is business so at the return of Mermista’s blush, Glimmer pounces.

“We could _definitely_ get that information to you later, Mermista. At dinner, maybe? Just the three of us?” She lowers her hand on top her own copy of the shipping agreement. “I’ll probably have the _other_ papers checked for you by then too. I mean, only if we can get aalllll this work-” She pats the agreement pointedly. “-out of the way in time for that, of course.”

Mermista makes several interesting expressions, some pained, some reluctantly happy, some seething, most just some level of self-disgust.

“… uggggghh.”

Groaning, the sea princess holds out her hand. Seahawk pops up right on cue, beaming as he places the pen back in her hand and then tries to kiss it gallantly. Shooing him off Mermista signs the shipping agreement, every stroke of her ink sullen.

“This better be some dinner, Shimmer.” Seahawk whimpers. Mermista rolls her eyes. “Dinner for four.”

A huge weight lifts off Glimmer as she watches the official ink dry on one solved problem. “It’ll be great, I guarantee it.”

“Rrgh…”

Both copies are set aside fully completely. Glimmer takes a deep breath, letting the reality sink in. It’s _done_. It’s _over_. She did it, the number of unhappy people in Brightmoon should go down just smidge- she could kiss the papers the agreement is written on, all _two hundred_ of them. She could kiss Adora for being so wonderfully perfect and for being in such easy kissing range- But no, not professional, not in front of everyone, absolutely not when ‘everyone’ includes her own mom.

The meeting went good after all, just like Adora said. Glimmer’s way worked, just like Adora thought it would. It’s all too good to be true, and yet-

Glimmer blinks, cold sweat breaking out at the nape of her neck. She feels dizzy for a moment, hears voices slowly chiming in around her but only as a meaningless buzz, blinks again, hard, heart thudding each time she does so.

The table doesn’t turn into her bed. The memorial murals don’t change into her own bedroom walls.

The metal in her hand, small and wing-shaped and warm from her own body heat, also stays firm. So does the worn leather as Glimmer wraps shaking fingers around it, remembering Adora’s hands as she’d put the necklace on and Adora’s blush when Glimmer had kissed her afterwards. That happened. It did. The proof is right here, safe in Glimmer’s hand.

And also sitting in the chair next to her, actually, in the shape of Adora wearing her colors and her clothes like it’s going to be a normal thing. Breathing out Glimmer looks over, heartbeat slowing as she looks into the face of the girl she- 

Her girlfriend has disappeared. All that’s left is a purple lump sitting hunched in Adora’s chair, blonde ponytail sticking out from the neck whole.

Glimmer drops her hand from her necklace, reaching out to what she assume IS still her girlfriend, whispering. “Adora? Are you-”

“We forgot them.” Her huddled robe mumbles, trembling. “We forgot.”

This does not clear things up for Glimmer. “Forgot who.” A quick glance around the table confirms. “Everyone’s here.”

The lump shrinks incrementally.

“Glimmer…”

Says, wretchedly.

“…. our notes... your _speech_ …”

And in the time it takes Glimmer to understand _that_ gut-sinking statement, her mother finally summons up the strength to look at her directly.

“Glimmer.” Queen Angella’s flick over the Adora with concern, but apparently she decides that Glimmer’s hand on Adora’s head/shoulder/whatever means the situation is under control. “I believe it’s about time for your presentation?”

Soundlessly Adora slides out of her chair and under the table. Everyone is staring.

“Oh… ‘kay.”

Glimmer is standing somehow, not running or screaming or teleporting into another kinder dimension or crawling under the table with Adora.

“The presentation.” She says clearly in a voice made steady from shock. “I prepared it ahead of time, but.” She can feel Adora’s side pressing against her leg, the fearless, incredibly powerful reincarnation of She-Ra shivering with the shadows of other meetings and what a slip up like this would have meant back then. The confident Adora who’d reassuring Glimmer alone in their room is gone, melted away into fear.

No. _No._

This is not going to be another memory for Adora to wince about afterwards.

Very deliberately, Glimmer pushes all the papers nearest her away. “But I’m going to be doing this presentation my way, actually, and we’re going to be a bit more casual about it.”

Her mom raises an eyebrow, questioning. Glimmer pretends not to see- it can work. She’s going to _make_ it work.

“We’ll do it like this- I’ll give a quick rundown on the rebellion right now, just a summery. Afterwards, anyone with questions can ask them, and we’ll all work together to put together the answers with whatever information or experience we each have right now.” Glimmer doesn’t let it come out as a question. Around the table people are nodding, some looking interested, others slightly relieved. Adora’s shaking has stopped. “This way no one has to wait forever to correct me if they need to.” Glimmer dares a small smile, stomach clenching. “Personally, I know it’s hard to stay awake long enough to do that sometimes. Or remember what you were going to say, by the time it’s finally your turn to say it.”

Low chuckles. From one side Bow flashes her a furtive thumbs-up. Past him Perfuma, usually a bit wilted-looking among all the stacks of paper, has perked up like a freshly watered flower. Brightmoon’s general doesn’t any more grim than normal. Spinnerella and Netossa are both beaming, Swift Wind has a knowing grin, Seahawk is bristling with excitement- any change up is fun for him, Glimmer guesses- But even Mermista is looking a little less grumpy with her. And- Is Frosta is taking _notes?_

Swallowing carefully, Glimmer glances to the side. Her mom is smiling, leaning back in her throne with her hands casually clasped on the table. Seeing her daughter toss over years of carefully crafted protocol doesn’t seem to be bothering her at all, apparently.

Glimmer doesn’t get a chance to try understanding that though. Mermista is lifting her hand, or is doing the more floppy and boneless Mermista version of it anyway.

Bracing herself Glimmer nods. “Yes?”

“Uhhh…” The sea princess lets the drawl drag on as she eyes the abandoned chair next to Glimmer. Her faint frown might just be her default face or it might actually be a hint of worry. “Are we like, not supposed to wonder what Adora’s doing down there, or…”

_Thud!_

The whole table rattles. Glimmer, and everyone else, winces- That sounds at least like a really bad bruise. Before she can wonder about the chance of an actual concussion, or even a one hit K.O. in the table’s favor, Adora’s head pops back into view.

“I dopped this.” Wire frames glint in her hand as she hurriedly scoots back into her seat, tugging Glimmer’s robe straight as she goes. “Sorry.”

“Uh huh.” Mermista doesn’t look convinced. “Your glasses fell off your face. While you were just… sitting there.”

Adora squirms. “Yes.” Makes a big production out of carefully wiping the lenses clean on the front of her robe. “Glass- glass does that.”

“Glass- _es_.” Bow corrects automatically. “Maybe the frames are crooked? I’ll check on them later and fix that for you, maybe even.” He grinned. “ _Ply_ er my trade?”

A collective groan rises through the room.

“Bow.” Glimmer sighs as Perfuma snorts so hard she sprouts three flowers and a vine. “Really? Now?” She’s going to hug him to death for this. She’s going to bury him alive in compliments, the brilliant man, drawing all eyes on himself and away from a slightly pink-faced Adora.

Adora who puts her glasses right back on, sliding over the broken bump on her nose that really makes it hard to imagine her frames sliding off, and immediately goes back to shuffling through papers again and, oh please, please don’t let her still looking for intel on local sucker fish sightings… but nope, seems like she’s writing something down instead.

Finishing off her note Adora looks up at Glimmer, pale eyes expectant over the rim of her glasses. Oh. Oh Glimmer forgot that’s a thing. Oh she really does owe Mermista an apology dinner for weaponizing THAT look against her in public. 

Pen poised, Adora takes a calming breath and smiles, only a little awkwardly.

“Ready when you are.”

Glimmer scrambles to remember what other important thing she’s somehow forgotten. “What?”

In answer Adora’s smile warms. She lifts her pen a little higher over a mostly blank page.

She wants to write down what Glimmer says? Of course she does. It’s a report and she’s Adora, and Glimmer is smiling too as she turns to face the rest of the table.

“Right then.” Warm metal at her finger tips, her robe shifting on Adora’s shoulders as her girlfriend gets ready to write. “Let’s get started.”

Silently and just to herself, Glimmer makes a mental note of her own- Making out with her girlfriend a lot? Possibly VERY vital to the future of the rebellion.


End file.
